Some might say I have a hard time sticking with a plan. I disagree. I stumble around looking for the best and most efficient way to accomplish something, and in the process, I might lose sight of what it truly was that I wanted to accomplish in the first place. I believe this happened with me and writing.
When I first imagined the idea of a story that would later morph into YR, I would write for hours on end. I loved it. Creating a scene and putting it down so I could relive the people and places I imagined. Then I began sharing some of my writing with a few friends. It wasn't a sudden emotion, but the feeling of having to write for others crept up on me. It became a "have to" instead of a preferred "want to." I stopped sending the chapters soon after, my thoughts being "I don't think my friends are actually enjoying this..." But the feeling of "have to" had already taken root. When I shared the story with my mom for the first time, she said, "You could publish this."
Suddenly, my audience had become the world. And the pressure rose with the number of people.
After a while I thought, "Oh I could share the Gospel with my writing!" Then I felt "called by God" to write my book. Talk about someone breathing down my neck.
I began to see writing as a job, work that had to be completed. I went to a conference (wholly unprepared without even a finished manuscript), started this blog, and set a schedule for myself.
Somehow, I had walked into the trap of writing for everyone else but myself. I felt guilty talking about my writing when I wasn't even doing that much. I treaded the task and tried to avoid it as much as possible.
Only recently I've seen how wrong I've been in how I viewed writing. Originally I wrote for myself, to write the perfect book for me. How I wanted a romance to turn out, the circumstances I wanted to read about. Then peer pressure crawled into my heart; thus, I've been rehabilitating my heart. I've made this blog private for one, though I think someday in the future I will reopen it; I've stopped talking about my writing with friends and family; and I've begun to think of writing as a hobby, not a job that I'll keep until I go to college. No matter where I am or what I'm doing career wise, I can always go to writing for a release and relief. It will become like photography to me: something I love doing but never force myself to do. I'll write when I want to, and I think the more I see it as something purely for me, the more often I will want to.
As for feeling called by God, I don't know if I am or not, but I know I am called to share the Good News and Christ's love in every part of my life, my actions and my words. Weaving the Gospel into my stories will happen. It's at the core of me, so how can it not soak into my prose?
Ellissa's character has been developing even further lately. I realized she isn't mad about Walter leaving her, she feels guilty. She feels she didn't do enough to save him, and that is what makes it so hard for her to be around him. I think I was putting in too much of my own skewed emotions into her. She's her own person.
Sounding like a madwoman who talks about people in her mind,
NA
No comments:
Post a Comment